leave this all on your machine
by tints
Summary: Alaric apologises through Jeremy for what his alter ego did to Caroline.


**disclaimer:** i do not own these characters.

written for the team barbie ficathon held over at livejournal, for the prompt alaric apologises through jeremy for what his alter ego did to her. **contains minor spoilers for season four**; based purely on speculation, however. title is from postal service's _such great heights_.

* * *

—

**LEAVE THIS ALL ON YOUR MACHINE**

—

They repaint Alaric's room again. It's a light pink this time, covering the pale, mossy green Elena had chosen a few weeks prior.

"It's not right," Elena says, fidgeting where she stands. Being a vampire, it makes her nervous, makes her less like the girl Jeremy remembers and more like the strangers filling up his house. She stands tall, but her shoulders are slouched; she tries to hide away in a room that's half-painted. "It doesn't - It's just not right."

"Yeah," he says, though he doesn't get it. This room is a room, just like any other part of the house. It's replaceable, like the people in their lives, and will become someone else's before the year ends. That's how these things go.

"How about we do a hot pink?" Caroline beams from the side, paintbrush already in a tin of paint no one but she approved of. She's way too perky, filling in the spaces Elena's abandoned. She slaps the paint onto the wall and scrutinises it as if it's a lie.

His eyes watch her hand on her hip, the way her back is stiff. "I don't think so," he says a little with a laugh. "I'm kind of over everything being pink."

"Me too," pipes up a voice from behind him. When Jeremy spins, he's gone.

*

He's in the room that's half painted green and pink. His hands are in his pockets as he takes in how empty and quiet the room is. It's a lot brighter without Alaric, less dark and broody; the secrets he held have been released since his death. Jeremy misses it.

"Pink, seriously?"

Jeremy turns around. Alaric's face is scrunched up, amusement pulling his lips up as he looks at Jeremy. His heart rams itself against his ribcage. "Yeah," he says. "Caroline's idea."

Alaric glances down, hands in his pockets. "About her, Jeremy. I need you to do something for me."

*

Tyler's kind of dead, so Caroline kind of stays. Jeremy thinks it's the worst plan in the world, considering the Council's on their asses and Caroline's kind of a magnet for death. But she stays and he allows her, since he's the man of the house now, the only one left with the ability to have a piece of paper state he's the owner of the four walls and door. He's the invitation giver. It takes him two weeks to let either Damon or Stefan into the house after he gets the paperwork all drawn up.

But Caroline, she gets it the minute he signs that dotted line. It's not because he likes her or anything, but because she's the only one who can keep Elena from splitting. Her legs are jittery, always tapping or moving, and he knows Elena's ready to run from the feelings bursting inside of her.

He catches her in Alaric's room. Or the new room. It doesn't belong to anyone, now. He figures he might as well think like that, think of it as no man's land until someone decides to claim it.

"Jeremy," she says, her back to him. Spinning, she smiles, "Hey. Am I being too loud? Too fumey?"

"No," he says. He can't smell the paint. Must be a vampire thing, as is everything these days. "I, uh. It's kind of lonely in this house."

"Yeah," she says, looking away. "I'm sorry. You know. Alaric, he was a good guy." He knows she means it, despite how she tries to stay detached. Caroline's usually smothering, mothering him in the way Elena used to, but today, it's different. She's off and he's off; she doesn't know how to act around someone who lost the one person he idolised and he's not sure how to act around the one person who watched that idol fall from grace.

"He is," he says. Speaking about people in the past tense, it's something he's never going to do. It's the one thing he can control while playing on someone else's chess board. "About the school -"

"Do you think we should go for a darker pink?" she turns around, hand on her hip again. She's assessing the room. It's a light pink, something similar to Elena's room when she was a single digit a lifetime ago. Jeremy sighs. "It's too light. Dark colours trap the coolness."

"I'm pretty sure that's a window."

*

He knows he's not a writer. He can't string a proper sentence together, but he knows that every time he tries to approach the school topic, it goes as follows:

"Caroline -"

"Jeremy, don't."

He's thinking about writing it down in a diary to count how many times she slips back into her mindset of denial before she finally breaks. Alaric's convinced it'll fill up three journals. Jeremy wonders if he can make money on this to pay the bills.

*

She's stenciling the very top of the wall when she cracks. He can't see the image, but he's sure he won't like it. He doesn't like anything any more.

"Caroline," he says, and doesn't get to say much else when she interrupts.

"He's with you, isn't he?" she's on a ladder, back to him. Her shoulders slump. The brush in her hand seems dry.

"I was going to ask if you wanted lunch," he finishes, brows furrowed. He pauses, taking a few steps into the room. He watches her, sees how her back hasn't stiffened yet, how that's a signal of her preparing to change the subject. "Yeah," his voice is lower. "He's with me."

"Why does he want to talk to me?" she turns on the ladder, eyes on him. Jeremy finds he has to look away. "Shouldn't he feel, like, guilty for what he did to Elena?"

"He does," Jeremy says, taking another step closer. "But Elena actually let me tell her what he wanted to say. She didn't cut me off." He says it with a smile, that encourages a small one from her.

"I -" she stops. He takes the brush from her hand. She keeps the little plate of darker pink paint in her other. "I know it wasn't him," she says, voice deeper, as if she's trying to convince herself over him. "I'm really good at noticing the difference, Jeremy."

"You might be," he says, glancing away. "But Alaric's not."

She scoffs.

"It wasn't him," he says. "It was -"

"Hyde. Or Jekyll? I'm not quite sure who he was going for."

"And you can tell the difference," he quips with a monotone, staring right at her. Caroline looks away. "Look, he's here," Jeremy sighs. "He wants to say he's sorry, Caroline. You know him better than anyone else. He never would've hurt you."

She stays quiet.

"He feels bad. Like, really bad, Caroline. And the whole - He didn't mean it. You need to understand that, okay?"

After a few beats, she says, quietly, "I do."

"If he could've stopped it -" He's talking over Alaric now, who is at his side, voice insistent that she listen to him. Jeremy closes his eyes before regathering and continuing, "He would've stopped it."

"I tried," Alaric says. Jeremy's been really good at ignoring him. He's not the best at talking when someone else is, but maybe that's his sixth sense, being able to listen and speak at the same time. It's a skill he never really had in his arsenal before he became Haley Joel. "Believe me, Caroline. I tried. He kept pushing me back. I was - I was basically dead."

Caroline's looking at Jeremy. He must've slipped in the personal pronouns. "I think a part of me just wants to be angry at him because it's easier," she says, looking over his shoulder. Alaric's right there, where she's looking, but he knows she can't see him. None of them did when they could've done something to stop the one person he ever looked up to from slipping away from them. "It's easier being angry at the people we know than the strangers who take over them and make them act like -" She glances away.

"Your dad," Alaric says. Jeremy doesn't fill in the space and repeat it.

"I like to believe the best in people," she says. "It's better than believing the worst. And I'm - Is he here?" she looks around the room before her eyes settle on Jeremy. "Like, really here? Right now?"

Jeremy glances to his side. "Yeah," he says, nodding, returning his gaze to her. "He is. And he can hear you."

Caroline's not sure where to look, but she glances to where Alaric is, where Jeremy had settled his eyes seconds previously. "I'm sorry I didn't believe in you, Alaric," she says. She descends from the small ladder, placing the plate on one of the steps before she looks at Jeremy. Her arms have patches of pink paint coated on them, like a leopard print. Crossing her arms, she glances to where Alaric is, confidently, now. "And I'm really sorry I'm painting your room pink, but maybe you should've given me an A on that history paper when you had the chance."

Alaric laughs. Later, he'll say it's a step in the right direction.

And for Jeremy to paint the room blue the following night.


End file.
